I just got the cover for Bedding Down, the novella anthology coming out in December from HarperCollins’ Avon Red imprint! My novella, “One Night in Winter” is one of the seven stories in this collection. The other authors include Gwen Masters, Alison Tyler, Marilyn Jaye Lewis, Isabelle Gray, Sophie Mouette and Shanna Germain. We were all brought together under this lovely cover by our fabulous editor, Rachel Kramer Bussel.
I am really excited about this anthology-- this is my first novella and my first (but hopefully not my last) time being published with Avon Red. Rachel says there will be a fair amount of promotion for this collection and I will be giving away copies right here throughout the month of December.
I know it’s only June and not even officially summer yet, but winter is going to sizzle!
I’ve been reading everything I can about what I missed at Book Expo America last weekend. Why? Because it’s book heaven! Rachel Kramer Bussel refers to BEA as a “book orgy.” Oh my… sign me up. I really, really need to make a pilgrimage to BEA next year.
Salon’s Laura Miller covered BEA and titled her observations Would You Like Some Books With That Totebag? Anyone who has ever attended any sort of conference related to the publishing industry knows the truth in that question!
I found this snippet particularly amusing:
In unguarded moments, however, publishers complained that they received more pitches than they had a chance to deliver. “It’s relentless,” one sales rep sighed at a party for Connelly in L.A.’s Union Station. “Every time you turn around, someone’s shoving a manuscript into your hands. I keep telling them I’m not an editor, but they don’t seem to understand the difference.” Aspiring writers planted themselves in autograph lines in a bid to pass unpublished manuscripts to established authors or to beg celebrities to plug their book on TV. (Apparently, all those Americans who claim to be too busy to buy or read books can still find plenty of time to write them.)
The next three locations for BEA are New York City in 2009, Washington, DC in 2010 and Las Vegas in 2011. I will make it to one of them and I will not shove a manuscript at anyone.
I know Mondays aren’t supposed to be much fun, but my Monday has turned out pretty well so far! This afternoon, I went to see Sex and the City. I really enjoyed it, loved seeing “the girls” together again and love, love, love seeing women my age and older on screen playing sexy, confident women instead of… mommies and psychotics. Okay, so a couple of the girls are mothers, but it’s not all they are… and that’s nice to see.
Then I came home to an e-mail from the editor at XCite Books informing me that my story “Private Lessons” will appear in Satisfy Me, due out in August. Fun news!
XCite’s covers are always vibrant and distinctive and this one reminds me of Alison Tyler and her CFPP (Call for Panty Pictures). I love these hot pink rhumba panties!
I can’t find a table of contents online for Satisfy Me-- are any of my writing buddies in the lineup? I hope so! It’s going to be a steamy summer.
Hope you all had a good Monday, too! 
I’ve never been a big believer in Writer’s Block. Writer’s Paralysis, maybe. Writer’s Apathy, certainly. But Writer’s Block? Nah. I’ve never felt blocked from writing-- there are just too many thoughts and ideas and snippets of dialogue and characters rolling around in my brain for me to ever feel blocked. I know what I want to write, I just can’t figure out which thing to write first.
Which is where I am today.
I have what seems to be an endless list of projects-- some started, some near completion, some in the final editing stages, some no more than a few notes jotted down in a notebook or a brief synopsis typed and saved as “Novel Idea.” So many ideas swirling around and I can’t figure out what I should be writing. I try to be logical, practical-- figure out where I need to be in six months, a year… but that doesn’t work. I can imagine different paths and I’m standing at a crossroads.
Do I focus on that literary novel idea that still seems beautiful and tragic and will be painful to write? Or the half-finished mystery that’s been floating around in my brain for going on three years? Or the nearly-finished chick lit novel I wrote for NaNoWriMo two years ago? Should I scrap all the old stuff and focus on something new, like the paranormal dreamer/insomniac story I’ve been working on the past few days? Turn my attention to that YA story that popped into my brain after my rant about Nivea’s anti-cellulite gel-cream (grr… I still hate that gel-cream term!)? What do I write next?
Should I forget working on a novel right now since I’m so torn by which story to write? Should I focus on the third draft of my screenplay For Ever? Should I go ahead and start that new screenplay idea that makes me smile when I think about it? Should I just focus on getting caught up on short fiction deadlines so I’m not submitting stuff the week it’s due? What do I write next?
What do I write next?
This is not what I consider Writer’s Block. I have an abundance of ideas, not a shortage. It’s like the kid who gets too many toys at Christmas and suffers from sensory overload. It’s hard to enjoy any one thing when there are so many other good things competing for your attention. It is definitely a mental overload of sorts. And the more I think on it, the more bogged down I get. Being logical doesn’t work. Reading mailing lists to see which publishers/lines are looking for stuff right now, checking Publishers Marketplace to see what the hot new deals have been made, going over publishers’ guidelines to see if one particular idea I have is suited to a certain publisher, combing my wishlist of agents and perusing the blogs of Writers I Want to Be When I Grow Up, only muddies the waters further. Too many distractions and not enough writing, that’s the problem.
I need to go with my instincts, but I fear my instincts are at odds with my heart. And we all know which one wins (at least for me). I can’t write everything right now, but I need to start somewhere. I need to just shut off all the voices in my head and start writing-- or continue writing-- something. (Something other than a blog post.)
I’ll write 20 pages and let you know how I feel in the morning.
The thing about being a writer is that it is a contradiction. On one hand, it is a very solitary pursuit. In order to actually be a writer, you have to write-- and that requires being alone for a good chunk of the time. However, once you are a writer, everything you write is under scrutiny from everyone. You go from being alone in the world to having everyone and his brother and his brother’s dog telling you what you should write and how you should write.
Everyone feels entitled to offer an opinion or observation and those who know you will (usually) be kind and tell you how incredible you are while you sit there and think, “How nice. If only they knew anything about writing and publishing and also perhaps owned a publishing company...” Those who don’t know you will offer up everything from the highest of praise to the cruelest (and most personal) of insults as if, by writing what you’ve written and making it public, they are entitled to offer an opinion. There is the assumption that all writers have tremendous egos, but it’s been my experience that the ones with the biggest egos are the indignant readers who think you should have written something better. As if their singular opinion will make a writer smack themselves in the head V-8 style and say, “Why, of course! You are so very right and brilliant for noticing what a lousy writer I am! Thank you!”
One of the issues about being a writer is branding. Branding, as in marketing. “Author branding,” as it’s called.* When I Googled “author branding” I came up with a variety of links. Candice Proctor/C.S. Harris does an excellent job of explaining why author branding is important:
In essence, a brand is a simplifier. In our society, simple is good. We have so many choices today that no one has the time to do all the research necessary to really make an informed choice. Branding makes life easier.
While I understand the concept of “author branding,” I have a serious problem with my own branding. I can’t do it. You don’t even have to know what author branding is in order to tell I’m hopeless at it. Just look at my blog. Fun and friendly cartoon illustrations interspersed with sexy and salacious book covers. Hmm. Am I sending mixed messages?
Forget the header and sidebar-- consider the content. From one day to the next, I’m lamenting the sexism and exploitation in a Dairy Queen commercial, crowing about recent story sales to two forthcoming oral sex anthologies, showcasing a picture of wildlife in my backyard, indulging in a bit of pop culture humor with LOLCats and back to talking about my writing, from my foray into screenwriting to my fifty-something published erotica story that’s out now.
Who the hell am I?
I read a lot of writers’ blogs. I’ve seen author branding done incredibly well. So well, in fact, that the line is blurred between author and characters. Now that is author branding. Yet, I can’t do it. Not in my blog, which is a mashup of all the things that interest me, nor in my writing, which is… well, yeah, a mashup of all the things that interest me. I have made a little mark in erotic fiction; I made an even smaller mark in romance fiction. I’m trying to make a mark in chick lit and mystery and literary fiction, as well. Oh, and screenwriting.
How does one “brand” that mix? Well… it seems the way to do it is to assign different pseudonyms to different kinds of writing and develop different branding plans for each (including a different blog for every brand). Except, well, I don’t want to use a pseudonym. I write under my real name-- everything I write is under Kristina Wright (with the exception of erotica anthologies in which I had more than one story-- and then my “pseudonyms” were derivations of my real name) and I have no intention of ever writing under a pseudonym.
I know writers who have chosen to use pen names for a variety of reasons and I respect their choice to do so-- but it’s not for me. I also know writers who have been bullied into using pen names by editors and agents. Publishing is a tough business and the lure of a contract is often enough to make someone with a difficult-to-pronounce name or a name which has been around the block in a different genre decide to bow to the powers that be. It happens. I don’t judge, I just don’t think I could do it for any reason. Of course, I will likely die penniless and obscure for sticking by my principles while other writers will go on to sell books in multiple genres because they have done such a brilliant job of branding each of their pseudonyms. Such is life.
The word “genre” gets thrown around a lot, too. As in: “What genre do you write?” Most often, the question is boiled down to: “What do you write?” It could be asked by a polite stranger or a friend of a friend at a backyard barbecue or an interested agent or an exhausted editor in an elevator on the third day of the fourth conference they’ve attended in six weeks. In all cases, a writer should be able to rattle off an answer-- preferably one that is intriguing. It’s part of the author branding, you know. For the past decade, my stock answers have ranged from, “A little bit of everything” to “Whatever I can sell” to “Um… well… right now I’m working on...” followed by a brief and jumbled description of a current project. None are very awe-inspiring, but that’s why I’m hopeless when it comes to author branding.
Maybe one day I’ll get better at author branding. I won’t change my name, but maybe I’ll figure out a way to write everything I want and make that my “brand.” My tagline could be: “Something different in every bite!” Like trail mix. Variety. Crunchy, chewy, sweet and salty. Yeah, I could be trail mix.
Hmm. Needs work, I think.
I fear I will never really get the hang of author branding if the best I can do is compare myself to trail mix.
*(I will soon do a blog post on my issues with the word “author” as compared to my preferred word, “writer.")
Life. Love. Writing. Friendship.
Sex. Books. Movies. Travel. Politics. Feminism. Academia. Insomnia. Rants. Raves. Chocolate. Lots of chocolate. Some names have been changed, some stories have been embellished. Thanks for stopping by and beware of the dog. Read more...
